HAVRE — If you mix robotics and humans… you’re a cyborg right?! Well in Havre, MT there’s a lot of advemacment happening in the blending of robots and humans. While knee replacements aren’t anything new, the cutting edge robotics aspect is changing how the procedure is done
I went to the @northernmontanahospital to learn about new robotic knee technologies that have come to Montana. The new devices monitor a patient's recovery in real time so that they can be reviewed by a physician to help reduce recovery time. Dr. Farr came to Montana in order to be closer to the outdoors, but has also seen the opportunity to bring new technologies like robotics to the community. With the newer knee replacements already being utilized, the hospital is now setting its aim on other total joint replacements such as shoulder and hip replacement.
Dr. Farr says that they try to go with conservative treatments like physical therapy first, but if that doesn’t work then the next step is surgery. “The ROSA robot allows us to do more accurate total knee replacement… we’re less than 1 mm and 1 degree in accuracy,” says Dr. Farr. In addition to the knee replacement they are adding a computer chip that has a gyrometer, and other tools to allow the physician to see exactly what is happening. “We can reach out to the patient if they aren’t progressing at the correct rate” he adds. “I anticipate that with time as this becomes more mainstream and as more studies are done this will all become more mainstream very soon”.
